Blood Shaper

Book 5: Chapter 23

Kay tried to listen as Alahna’s advisers debated, trying to decide who would be in charge of the investigation, who would need to be checked next, and what the hell was going on. He tired, but the attempt was half-hearted, his mind awash with imagery, a man stepping through the bars of a prison door, a knife being driven into a man’s arm to reveal circuitry and metal, and a single metal hand descending into molten metal with one thumb raised. In reality, he wasn’t actually concerned that Skynet was sending Terminators into other realities as an invasion force, although there had been a moment. Even with a hypothetical infinite number of potential realities out there, happening to run into one that contained a fictional story made reality was incredibly small.

He’d stopped paying attention to the meeting when it devolved into arguing over which person was better suited to one task or another that needed to be taken care of and he didn’t recognize a single name. The various officials weren’t sure what to make of a visiting monarch being included in the planning to keep their nation from being undermined by eldritch infiltration, but after he’d helped identify at least one of the monsters he’d been relegated to “helpful asset” in their minds and ignored. The few times he’d had to clarify something about his abilities or explain his limitations they’d listened, but they obviously didn’t care about him. Not that he blamed them, but it was an interesting position to be in after the last few years. The amount of “this person doesn’t exist” attitude that was wafting off of the people present was almost mystifying, not because he was a king, although that did add a little bit of flavor, but because not a single person other than Kay and his guards was above tier three. He could kill every one of them without breaking a sweat, and they were acting like he was background furniture.

Alahna had left at some point, commanding her followers to keep talking and letting them know she’d be back shortly, which is when the discussion had devolved a few levels into semi-factional bickering. There wasn’t a sense of true animosity among the people who were arguing and pushing for their expert to be selected, but they were still pushing for status and influence in the middle of a crisis, which was off putting. Kay wondered if Avalon would ever reach this level, and then admonished himself, changing his wondering to how he could minimize the impact and the fallout of the eventual bullshit, it existing was inevitable.

The door swung open, and Alahna stormed in, interrupting a tirade by some person Kay didn’t care about directed at another person he didn’t care about. “Right!” She snapped, “Bev’roa will handle the investigation. She is in charge of everything involved unless I give a direct, in person contradictory order. Am I clear?” She whipped her head around, raking her gaze against everyone, and no one said a word in response. She was turning to leave when she caught sight of Kay and a look of confusion rose on her face when she did a double take. “King Kay, thank you for your patience and for keeping an eye on my officials.” She managed to recover fast enough that Kay was pretty sure no one else noticed, “If you would join me, please.”

“Of course.” Kay took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.

After the door had closed behind them and they’d made it down the hall a ways, Alahna leaned in close to him. “Why were you in there?”

“Uh… I don’t know? The spy person who was doing all the talking left me with all of those people after we killed the shapeshifter. Was I not supposed to be there?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you being there, but it wasn’t what I was intending. I wouldn’t leave most people alone with the argument idiots let alone someone who’s helping me with an important issue.”

“What’s with…” He turned slightly and gestured back the way they’d come from, “… them?”

Alahna sighed and rolled her eyes, looking just like her cousin for a moment, “Useful idiots. I’m sure you have them yourself, people who can be useful in the right positions but are much more focused on currying influence or building connections, so you have to sit on them from time to time. That particular batch consists of bureaucrats and officials that could actually do a little damage if they get compromised or replaced, so they ended up high on the ‘to be checked’ list. I left them in there under guard so they don’t leave and start spreading rumors. The nonsense they’re arguing over are useless positions that don’t matter but sound impressive enough that they’re distracted trying to put their faction in a better spot than the others.”

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Kay knew exactly what she was talking about, a few of the elected representatives that made up Avalon’s Parliament were that type, as well as some of the people who had flocked to Avalon thinking they could wrangle a Noble Title out of Kay. The one’s that could actually empty a bucket full of water that had instructions written on the bottom might actually be worth something with the right supervision, and Kay knew that as Avalon grew there would eventually be reason to trot some bait in the form of titles and influence out to lead the decently competent ones into being useful. “I know the type. None of them actually have a spot yet, but…”

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“Once you’re big enough they end up being worth the hassle. Most of the time.” Alahna grumbled. “Anyway, I’ll introduce you to Bev’roa and she’ll let you know how you can best help right now.”

“This is the person you’re putting in charge of all this?”

“Right. She’s one of the people that was originally in my party back in the day. The chances of her having been replaced are almost nothing, but you’ll need to check anyway.”

The meeting room she led him to had a much quieter and less argumentative group of people seated at a table and listening intently to a woman standing at the head. She was a human, with dark ebony skin and short hair of similar color. Kay couldn’t stop staring at her as they approached, not because of her beauty, he honestly couldn’t tell you what she looked like in that moment. He was completely entranced by the moving tattoo covering the back of her arm and her shoulder. It was a flowing, moving piece of art depicting an aerial view of some massive aquatic creature swimming through water. The animal or monster rotate onto its side, one giant orange eye that stared back at Kay. Between one moment and the next, in a swirl of colors, the entire image changed, and a large cat barely visible among the shadowed foliage of a jungle stalked in his direction, a pair of yellow eyes glowing in the dark.

The woman turned to look who was coming up to her. “Oh, your majesty. I…“

Kay stretched his neck as she turned, trailing her movements to keep the tattoo in his sight.

She looked over her shoulder and down. “Oi.” She reached up and smacked at the skin the tattoo was on. “Behave.”

The tattoo suddenly became a almost cartoon image of a house cat, which stared up at her sadly.

“I’m serious.”

It flickered, becoming a two-dimensional koi fish that swam under her clothes and out of sight.

“Sorry about that, he get’s a bit rambunctious at times. We haven’t met, I’m Bev’roa, you are?” She held out a hand.

Kay reached out to shake, still staring in wonder at where the tattoo had vanished from view. “Don’t apologize, that’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. Oh, and I’m Kay.”

“Oh?” She raised one eyebrow in a familiar move. “You’re Eleniah’s Outworlder king then.” She pulled her hand back and twisted her arm to present it to Kay. “Go ahead then.”

“Right, that.” He quickly performed the test, growing quite familiar with performing a quick and direty exertion of his Purify Blood Skill. He noticed the tattoo, in the shape of a frog, peeking up at the cut Kay pushed blood into from the underside of Bev’roa’s arm.

“Good,” She said after he stepped back, “That’s decently fast. How quickly did the fake react when you found it out? What was the reaction when you detected it? Can you do this test in a less obvious way? What Skill are you using? Do you have any other way of finding out the fakes?”

Kay blinked a few times at the bombardment of questions. “Five to ten seconds, it’s arm melted into goo and then it attacked us, I don’t know I haven’t tried but I have to put my blood into people to get it to work and I’ve been told it’s a weird feeling so I don’t think so, it’s a Skill called Purify Blood, and maybe? When I got close to the one living fake I’ve been near I got a feeling from the racial characteristic that I’m sure Alahna told you about,“ She nodded when Kay looked at her, “but that’s not conclusive enough in my book. Also, I can make weapons that would probably make any fakes react faster than they do when I’m slowly adding my blood to their bodies, but that would involve stabbing them which wouldn’t be great for any suspects we’re wrong about.”

“Hmm.” Bev’roa stated rubbing a thumb against her nose. The tattoo changed into a tiny squid smaller than a pinky nail and darted underneath the finger. It looked to be enjoying it, like she was petting it. “That sounds like a Skill from your Class Line so trying to find other people who can do tests for us is out, I could definitely feel you doing something, and if it takes that long to trigger something it wouldn’t be worth it to try and do covert testing. I also agree that one bad feeling isn’t enough to start dragging people in, and as much as I love the idea of just going around and stabbing people you’re right that that would be a bad idea.” She looked down, still rubbing her nose and began to pace back and forth in front of the table. “One out of our two suspects turned out to be a fake, which is inconvenient. If both were shapeshifters that would be easy, and if both passed the test it would mean that maybe the test doesn’t work, so we’d still be looking for a way to differentiate between real people and fake ones.”

She did a few more passes before stopping and looking up at Alahna. “Your majesty, we should pull back…” She paused to glance at Kay. “His majesty…? His majesty from our investigation for now.”

“Why?”

“Because one of the people we suspected of being a fake was acting suspiciously enough to be a suspect, but wasn’t a fake. Why were they acting so different that normal? Are any other of our suspects also not a fake? Now that we have a reliable cadre of people that we have confirmed actually themselves, we can begin an actual deep investigation into everyone who’s been acting strange. It could be that we have collaborators, different kinds of replacements, or real people acting suspiciously because of something completely different from the eldritch replacements. Also, his majesty has been seen by people in the palace during some strange events that haven’t been addressed, if we let him go do something else and be very obviously not involved in any potentially discovered snooping it leaves him open to be a surprise asset later.”

Alahna turned to Kay and asked, “Are you alright with that.”

“I’m here to help.” Kay shrugged, “If you tell me that the best way to help for the moment is to go do something else, I can do that.”

“Alright. Bev’roa, you handle whatever you need to handle, I’ll find something for King Kay to do that ‘s close enough to come back quickly if necessary and public enough to be seen. We owe him a few things in exchange for coming to help us, so maybe I can start paying some of that debt off while we’re at it.”